Close Looking: Lawren Harris’ and Theaster Gates’ Icebergs
Lawren S. Harris. Grounded Icebergs (Disco Bay), c. 1931. oil on canvas, 80 x 101.6 cm. Gift from the Estate of R. Fraser Elliott, 2005. © Family of Lawren S. Harris/Art Gallery of Ontario. 2005/156
Installation view: Theaster Gates: How to build a House Museum, July 21, 2016 – October 30, 2016, Art Gallery of Ontario. Artworks: House Heads Liberation Training, from Progress Palace, 2016. two-channel video projection; Houseberg, from Progress Palace, 2016. wood, roofing substrate, tar, 299.7 cm. Purchased with funds from the Modern and Contemporary Curatorial Committee, the Michael and Diane Hasley Fund, the Molly Gilmour Fund, the Janet and Michael Scott Fund, the David Yuile and Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund, the Ivey Foundation Contemporary Art Fund, the Contemporary Circle Fund, the Jay Smith and Laura Rapp Fund and the Elcy Wallace Fund, 2017. © Theaster Gates. 2017/31; 2017/30.
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Close Looking: Lawren Harris’ and Theaster Gates’ Icebergs
What can these two very different works, whose creation is separated by an 85-year gap, possibly have in common? The icebergs, of course! As we smoothly land into winter, few other symbols of the northern Canadian landscape are as majestic as the iceberg. Its hypnotizing aura and all-wavelengths reflecting brightness is one of the most fascinating icons inhabiting the worlds’ imagination of Canada.
Join Renata Azevedo Moreira, AGO’s Assistant Curator of Canadian Art, in this surprising weaving of links between two very distinct worlds: The Canadian Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris’ Grounded Icebergs (Disco Bay), 1931, and the American multidisciplinary artist Theaster Gates’ Houseberg, 2016.
You will see that icebergs can not only spread their beautiful light from a distance, but also shine like a disco ball and move to the rhythms of dance!